#210: Digital Consumer Trends for 2022

Cheetah Digital’s 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Index was recently released and reveals what consumers expect from the brands they do business with.

“Let’s Talk Loyalty” was joined by Tim Glomb, VP Content & Data with Cheetah Digital, to learn about the latest research, which features insights from over 5,000 consumers across seven countries.

Tim highlighted the findings that he found most fascinating, including increased consumer desire for personalization at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

We also heard about consumer privacy concerns and communication preferences by age groups.

Tim reminded us that even the biggest brands are constantly reviewing and evolving their strategies and reminded us that we can learn and grow from each other when we’re up to date and informed by clear understanding of key consumer priorities.

This episode is sponsored by Cheetah Digital.

Show Notes:

1) Tim Glomb, VP Content & Data with Cheetah Digital

2) Cheetah Digital’s 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Index

Audio Transcript

#210: Digital Consumer Trends for 2022 (36m)

Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas. And if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world. Cheetah Digital’s relationship marketing platform, bridges the gaps in your customer data, moving people from unknown consumers to loyal brand ambassadors with customer acquisition, multi-channel messaging and customized emotional loyalty programs. Cheetah Digital is a one-stop-shop for enterprise brands looking to simplify and scale their relationship marketing strategy.

Paula Thomas

00:00:54

Learn how brands such as American Airlines and Discovery Incorporated use Cheetah Digital to drive increased revenue with video case studies available on cheetahdigital.com. Hello, and welcome to episode 210 of Let’s Talk Loyalty. My topic today is the 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Index published by our friends and Cheetah Digital. It’s actually the third year of this report. So I’m delighted to be joined by Tim Glomb, their vice president of content and data, to discuss the findings and year on year comparisons in the data.

Paula Thomas

00:01:38

Now, most of the topics are very familiar to those of us in loyalty marketing, but what did strike me was just how much dramatic change came through across all of their findings in just the last 12 months, as you will hear the research covers seven countries. So today Tim will share the key global findings and also outline when and how we can access even more detailed insights from this project throughout 2022. So please enjoy my conversation with Tim Gill for Cheetah Digital So Tim Glomb joining me from Denver, Colorado.

Paula Thomas

00:02:23

Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.

Tim Glomb

00:02:25

Yeah, it’s great to talk to you again. I know we had you on my podcast last year, so I appreciate the input. I’m excited to talk to you today.

Paula Thomas

00:02:34

It’s super exciting to turn the tables, Tim and you’ve been doing so actually really hard work, I think with this report. So tell us all about it. So in terms of title, eh, 20, 22 digital consumer trends index, we’re going to get into all of the key insights. I think we’ve got five to go through today. We’ll before we do that, you know, I always ask about a favorite loyalty program, Tim, and given your incredible client base and all your expertise, I want to hear what is Tim Glomb’s favorite loyalty program in the world right now?

Tim Glomb

00:03:08

Yeah, well, you know, there are many, and there are several, and as you mentioned, cheated a journal. You know, we power a loyalty for a lot of clients, but I, I think the one that I liked the most, if I have to pick one of the children is not actually one of our clients. We don’t do their, their outright loyalty program, but it’s Starbucks and might be an easy one to pick. But it’s interesting. I think because I do not drink coffee. I’ve never had eight ounces of coffee in my life.

Paula Thomas

00:03:34

Wow.

Tim Glomb

00:03:34

But Starbucks is just, it’s such a great community based brand. That’s how it started. Its DNA was about community baristas. I mean, even if you walked into a Starbucks and bought a lemon pound cake or a cup of coffee, you can’t get beyond them asking your name. Like your name is written on the product. So it’s personalized even when they don’t even know you. So I love that about the brand, but the reason the loyalty program works for me is my two children. We have a Starbucks around the corner. We live in downtown Denver. We, my children both go to school, two blocks and three blocks away, respectably my daughter and son. And as their treat, if everything’s good all week, one day a week, we get the walk to Starbucks before school and they get to get their breakfast from Starbucks.

Tim Glomb

00:04:20

So the app is great. I mean, my son does not eat eggs, not because he’s allergic to anything. He just don’t like them. And the ability to go in there and order a product specifically the way you want it, order in advance, use the credits. It automatically every $25. You know, when the balance is low, it automatically replenishes. I don’t have to do anything I can hit. I can literally hit order. I can start the walk, which is literally a block and a half. And we walk in and our things are ready and we sit down and we have it. And then because of that behavior, I get great offers that meet my children’s needs like a cake pop or this or that because they know I’m buying those.

Tim Glomb

00:05:02

So I got to give kudos to Starbucks. We only power their personalization engine, which is part of their messaging and loyalty. That loyalty app makes those rough mornings much easier. When I can go click, click, click, walk the kids in smile on their face. They take a toothbrush, they brush their teeth when they get into school. And that everyone’s happy about the day. So Starbucks is my pick.

Paula Thomas

00:05:23

Okay. I love a Tim. And you know, I also love us from, I suppose, the business perspective as well as the consumer perspective, because I think you’re absolutely right. And remarkably as a non-coffee drinker for you to pick it as quite hilarious. So thank you for explaining that. But what I also learned, somebody was mentioning recently the whole idea of the bank of Starbucks. You know, the fact that, you know, they do that auto recharge, for example, the credit is there saves them a fortune on merchant fees. I think there’s a lot more applications for digital that retailers need to be thinking about. And I think they’ve proven that perfectly.

Tim Glomb

00:06:01

Yeah. Look, Starbucks is one of the biggest technology companies on the planet. You know, secondly, a giant real estate company, they know what they’re doing. We’re proud to be partners of theirs, especially for the last two years of innovating next gen personalization. I mean, we are the personalization engine and everything is Starbucks is personalized. So they’ve figured it out there. They’re smart a bunch over there and I’m excited and I’ll try and make the introduction. I’m actually, I’m actually interviewing Barbara Spearing over there later this month in April. So I’ll have her on our site soon and I’ll make the introduction to you.

Paula Thomas

00:06:35

Oh, that’s amazing. You can imagine we shared the same wishlist of the top guests in the world for loyalty. Great. So listen, tell us where did the inspiration come? First of all, Tim. So from what I understand, this is the third year you’ve done this consumer trends index report. So, so what’s the kind of background to it in the first place.

Tim Glomb

00:06:54

Yeah, I really love this project is, is a product that I kind of spearhead each year from a content perspective here at Cheetah. And it’s a global report as a former brand marketer myself. I mean, I I’ve, I’ve sat in the brand seat and the brand marketer seat far more than I’ve sat in the seat I am right now, MarTech. You’re telling great stories of our clients here. The insights directly from consumers have always been a huge driver for my marketing strategies. You know, you can have a great marketing team. You can have 3, 4, 5, 10 smart people in a room, but unless you’re truly listening to the audience and getting sentiment and attitudes from your consumers, you’re going to miss the mark. I don’t care how smart you are.

Tim Glomb

00:07:35

So over here at cheetah, this is our third edition. The idea is we go out globally. We’ve we focused on six countries, us, UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Australia, and the APac region. And the idea is to go ask these 30 questions that we know to be kind of staples around consumption loyalty messaging data these days, or a party, data, privacy, et cetera. And as the, literally the audience and understand like where do you, where do you sit on this? So we have not only a global perspective with over 5,000 respondents. The another thing I’m huge on that. I know statistically from school, you know, you get a, you get a sample rate is going to continue, but we love the idea of going to get 5,000 respondents really got meat and potatoes, all age groups, all gender, all genders.

Tim Glomb

00:08:25

So in our third year, what I’m pleasantly pleased to say is we truly can talk about trends, not just answers like, Hey, here are the answers on particular questions this year. And here’s how people are feeling about any given data point. Now we can literally see the trends over three years, and it’s amazing to see the trends that are trending, you know, up and down. So that’s the basis of the report. We know our clients are always asking us more impactful resources and the voice of the customer. So this is an investment we make every year. We’re presently pleased about it. Even our prospects, even people that aren’t doing business with us, still email us and say, this is a great report.

Tim Glomb

00:09:06

We really appreciate it. It helps inform our marketing strategy. So,

Paula Thomas

00:09:08

Yeah, and, and what I think is particularly useful, Tim is, you know, I have had a lot of research on this show and I continue to, and I love us, but they do tend to be single market specific. You know? So we look at the report for South Africa or Australia or the U S but the fact that you’ve gone out and you’ve got all of those countries and you can look at comparisons and contrasts, and I know you’re going to split this in a million different ways for all of your clients. So I love the breadth of us. And I guess my first question for you is maybe just generally what struck you this year, Tim, and we will get into the five kind of key highlights. And I’ll tell you, I suppose the one that struck me the most, because I was suddenly looking at things I’m not doing that I think I need to do as a consumer on the privacy side.

Paula Thomas

00:09:54

But before I talk about that, what do you think was that the single biggest thing that strokes you this year, Tim?

Tim Glomb

00:09:59

Yeah. I don’t know that it struck me, but it made me smile because it’s, it’s continuing and it’s cemented the trend the largest lift year over year, which has been a gradual increase, but it jumped this year was 110% increase year over year for people wanting the brands that they enjoy their favorite brands, wanting them to treat them as an individual. So we here cheated as a, we we’ve hunkered down and clearly put our flag in the sand to say, it’s all about personalization. If you can’t personalize at scale, you know, you’re, you’re really not doing what consumers expect. So to see that trend come out of this report this year in that hundred and 10% lift of people wanting to be treated as an individual, really cemented our strategy and our investment into personalization engines.

Tim Glomb

00:10:46

So I was pleasantly pleased to see that. And also, you know, as a human, you know, my name is Tim. I’m not, I’m a male and I’m 48 years old, but you know, my name is Tim and you know, I live in Denver, Colorado. So yeah, I think that makes sense. Cause I want to be treated as an individual as well.

Paula Thomas

00:11:01

And, and you’re absolutely right. I think we all talk about personalization and quite for quite a few years, but 110% in literally 12 months, that is a dramatic, you know, gesture signal from, from customers to say, we expect this now.

Tim Glomb

00:11:18

Absolutely. I mean, and we, we did a report with ad age last year, the path to personalization. And I believe the stats were 88% of brand marketers knew that in 20, 22, they had to personalize their communications, their ads, their messaging, everything they had to, they have to get there. So they knew that they at least had the forethought, but only 8% said they had the technology to actually deliver on it. So that was last year. That was literally a year ago, this month. And now you look at this report and 74% of people want to be treated as an individual. And realistically, I think everyone wants to be treated like an individual, but when 74% state, that is the number one goal, you have to take that seriously as a marketer and you can’t sleep on it anymore.

Tim Glomb

00:12:02

Not after COVID not after all this, you know, at home sheltering, people want to have a voice. They want to be recognized. They want to be given recognition for, for their allegiance and loyalty to brands. And it’s pretty clear. The data speaks for itself. That’s 5,000 people. That’s not me telling you to personalize it, 5,000 people telling you to better personalize.

Paula Thomas

00:12:23

Totally, totally. Yeah. I think COVID definitely made us all want to connect more to him, you know? So whether that’s personally, professionally, you know, there absolutely is just that dramatic increase in expectations. So, okay. Pretty dramatic one. And the first one, I guess then that came out was the protection of privacy. And I guess the reason this one really surprised me, Tim, and I know there’s a huge amount of documentation behind this, which will make sure that obviously listeners can access, but I’m, I suppose, most exposed to privacy, I suppose, particularly in loyalty with the regulatory side, you know, so we know we want to treat our customers really well.

Paula Thomas

00:13:03

We have to make sure all of our data is super protected, but the fact that the consumers are investing and spending so much money, like you’re talking here about things like incognito browsing, a 50% increase there and protecting that PC cleaners have 48% password generators up 40% blocking premium software. This is unbelievable stuff, Tim, the people are actually almost presenting it, I think by that, what I’m reading here.

Tim Glomb

00:13:33

Yeah. I mean, to me it looks like it’s a revolt of sorts, right? And I’ll, I just wrote something for ad week this week. And executive summary that’ll be published soon, but the gist of it was, and I put myself in this bucket, I was a brand marketer, as I said, far more than, than in MarTech. I think we I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. We got fat eating all this cookie technology. We empowered MarTech to go create technology that made us lazy marketers. We, we put creative to the side, we put story to the side and we were like, how can I get an optimized ad or an app to my story in front of somebody and get them to take the action that I, the brand marketer need.

Tim Glomb

00:14:14

I’ve got to meet my quarterly goals. I’ve got to meet my annual sales goals. So here’s my agenda. And I’m going to force it on consumers and the consumers are over it if, I mean they are done. And I’ve said this before too. And you know, I get, I catch some flack for it, but consumers don’t give a damn about your marketing plan. And the sooner that we as marketers understand that, then we can get to the level of all right. Well maybe, maybe they won’t use ad blockers. If I actually build a relationship with them, maybe they’ll actually like, appreciate my emails because I’m sending them something. They told me they want not something I want to sell them. And that’s where I think relationship marketing, you know, needs a kick in the pants this year.

Tim Glomb

00:14:55

And this data tells it, as you said, you know, incognito browser, people are trying to avoid the tactics that brands have invested in it’s time for us to get back to the way we communicate as humans and build relationships. We need to start doing that with our audiences at scale.

Paula Thomas

00:15:10

Yeah, yeah. For sure. Well, I will definitely be investing in more of those because yes. I feel like I’m, I’m revolt in, in process as well because, and the next point was probably the one that resonated the most with me, Tim. And it’s about this idea of using the customer’s data. Of course, both with permission. And I know you guys use this term a lot about, you know, what feels appropriate, but what feels creepy and for me, and it’s just happened to me again this week. It’s when I discussed something very specific, literally about, you know, a cold sore that a friend of mine had. And we talked about this and all of a sudden I’m getting ads for herpes screams.

Paula Thomas

00:15:50

I mean, it was so distressing. I can honestly tell you, Tim, both, you know, this whole idea of creepiness is definitely something you guys have latched onto from the beginning. And it’s just, again, it’s a revolt from people.

Tim Glomb

00:16:03

It really is. And yeah, there’s a stat in there in the report where we talk about devices, listening to you and then kind of what your you’ve explained. And my gr my great buddy Richard Jones has always told a story of how he went to get a vasectomy. And then all of a sudden, you know, even as he walks out of the facility, he’s getting all these ads, you know, Uber, he figured out Uber via Facebook, Uber sold his location cause he took an Uber to the facility. So, you know, that is, that is fairly creepy. And I love, you know, what Seth Godin has always talked about and permission based marketing, you know, it’s not rocket science. To me, it seems to be common sense, but yes, the data is showing that year over year, people are getting more and more frustrated with those types of tactics.

Tim Glomb

00:16:47

So leave those tactics to, to the spy outfits, leave those to the governments of the world and, you know, try and build better relationships, I think is what we, what we really need to take away from that.

Paula Thomas

00:16:57

Okay. No, you’re absolutely right. As I said, I’m very careful now what I say out loud and really, really don’t really don’t like it. And the next one that you talked about was I suppose people really saying they’re prepared to pay more from a preferred brand and, but there are conditions around that. So I think this is where the one that made you smile came through, particularly Tim and well, what else did you feel coming through in terms of, you know, what are the conditions that people are looking for before? They’re going to feel that loyalty regardless of their transactions. Cause we know it’s different, but it is the feeling we’re going for.

Tim Glomb

00:17:33

Yeah. It’s, it’s actually pretty simple. I mean, people want really simple things from brands to continue to build or retain their loyalty. One example was people said they just want to be recognized, right? And, and not recognized for every transaction, but recognized for the things they do with the brand, whether it’s on social, whether it’s coming to their website, going to their events, coming into their store, just being recognized. And I think, again, it goes back to, they want to be recognized as an individual, but they also want their small actions recognized. Another percentage said that they wanted to be part of a community. So what is the value add that a brand can give by saying, Hey, here are other customers just like you here, go meet each other or give them a forum.

Tim Glomb

00:18:18

I know Pepsi right now is doing some really good things around. It’s not my world, but I’m betting and gambling. And they’re just launching something. I just read where they’re trying to put people that are hearing impaired together into these kinds of off, you know, I guess betting pools and things and the experience around bedding. So, you know, these are ways that brands can create value, add that isn’t giving them extra points. Isn’t just like giving them an upgrade. Those things are great too, but they’re providing community, they’re recognizing individual actions that aren’t necessarily a sale or transaction. So those are the kinds of things that people are asking for.

Paula Thomas

00:18:53

Yeah. And, and just with your, I suppose, you know, client hat on and what you’re hearing from the brands, Tim, would you say that they’re increasingly open to those kinds of, I suppose, behaviors and allowing, you know, the investment, I suppose, because I think that’s the bottom line. I love the idea of recognizing, you know, what somebody’s done on social, but sometimes the business case is hard to kind of do particularly the scale of the kind of clients you guys deal with. What do you find? There’s more openness to that now, particularly I guess, with these insights coming in.

Tim Glomb

00:19:27

Absolutely. You know, and, and you just mentioned some T factors there, at least for us at Cheetah Digital and our clients are global enterprise brands. You know, they’re not small mom and pop shops. They’re large global brands, American Express, Starbucks, et cetera. They are open. And a good example of that. I’m not sure if you’ve had them on your, on your show, but Vans and North Face- Vans specifically, specifically the VF Corp. It, they adopted a mentality that said, Hey, look, yeah, we’re, we’re going to put an ROI on this. We’re going to put some KPIs, but we have to recognize people’s actions beyond the transaction and the Vans Family app. Just the name of it tells you what it is and the fact that you can go vote for your favorite skateboard surf or snowboard shop the fact that you can go and vote for artists or, or consume this content and get rewarded for that, for that transaction, that that’s not monetary.

Tim Glomb

00:20:21

It doesn’t hit their bottom line. It’s creating that community. It’s creating that sense of connection with the brand. And again, you know, the brand is around that counterculture. It always has been since 1966 and I’ve been a part of it as a skateboard. I’m still a skateboarder is 48.

Paula Thomas

00:20:35

Are you?

Tim Glomb

00:20:36

Fully, yea. But I appreciate that. And yes, the larger brands know it’s no longer a, Hey, that’ll be a differentiator. We do some emotional loyalty and things that don’t actually drive revenue to make the customer feel better. They know it’s like, it’s a must have today. It is. And again, I I’ll take it back to it’s building relationships, the better relationship you have with a person, the more prone that person is to interact with you. And it’s the same with friends, right? Like if I invite you over to barbecues every couple of months, you’re gonna invite me back to your barbecues or your events. That’s how friends work. And that’s exactly how brands need to start looking.

Tim Glomb

00:21:17

So we are seeing that we are seeing, we pride ourselves at cheetah of having a very robust, customized, emotional loyalty solution. Not just, Hey, here’s our loyalty solution, put your logo there. And it works just like the other brands. It’s all bespoke, it’s all completely unique. So we are excited to see and hear brands calling and asking like, Hey, how can we do something different, unique to our brand that goes beyond points, rewards, and transactions.

Paula Thomas

00:21:43

Yeah. And I think it also, what it does is it credits the customer with, you know, being the kind of, you know, being in that relationship with them. So I think the point I’m trying to make is we’re all very savvy that we know what happens when a coupon comes in. We know what they’re trying to provoke, you know, that we’re going to spend more. So when they see that kind of integrity coming through from a brand like vans, which we definitely have to get on the show to hear more like my, my absolute passion, Tim is innovative loyalty. And that to me is absolutely the epitome of that. So the more of that we can see coming through, I just think the whole industry will flourish because the consumers will do that engagement once they get that kind of opportunity to connect with the brand.

Paula Thomas

00:22:27

So, yeah, it’s the brand value, I guess also coming through with the, the personalization piece. So brilliant example there. And tell me then about things like, I know you guys do lots of, kind of contests and sweepstakes, so that’s also something that you found coming through in the digital trends report. So what’s coming through in the third year of that.

Tim Glomb

00:22:47

Yeah. So there was an increase in there. I forget what the actual increase year over year is, but 74% of people said that they would appreciate the opportunity to participate in a sweepstakes or, or win something from the brand. And that’s not even necessarily like take vans for instance, a free pair events. Maybe it’s when a trip with Tony Hawk, you know, the world’s greatest skateboarder ever lived. I go hang out with him in his own private facility for day. So we are in that space. Cheetah Digital has been a zero party data activist. In fact, I think Forester named us one of only two scalable enterprise-level, zero party data collection tools. It’s in the DNA of what used to be.

Tim Glomb

00:23:29

Weigh-in, it’s funny. I used to work at weigh-in seven, eight years ago. I left came back when it was acquired by cheetah to continue that, but we are seeing the end look at cheetah. We’re seeing great results when you are offering those things. One great example of that, which I always talk about, and I love discovery communications. They have all these great home improvement shows on television in north America and syndicated across the globe. Now they give away a home, a mansion every year, like a multi-million dollar home, and they’ve collected over a hundred million entries Per year for that home. And not only are they getting, you know, emails and phone numbers, that’s great, you know, their entry, they’re asking questions along the way, psychographic data questions like, Hey, do you love gardening?

Tim Glomb

00:24:17

Or do you have a roofing project? Or what are you doing at your home? Do you rent? Do you buy? And all of that intelligence, not only does it make the customer feel like they’re, you know, able to talk about themselves as an individual in that survey sweepstakes, but now it gives the brand even more clean data to say, great, well, our partner’s home Depot or Lowe’s, or this other home improvement partner says, Hey, we’ve got a gardening offer for you. And maybe that’s a coupon or maybe that’s content that, that helps empower that individual entrance life and enhances their needs. So, you know, we’ve been big into that. We’re seeing a huge influx of zero party data sweepstakes surveys, and it was great to see the needle lift again, 74% of people would love that opportunity from brands to, to win something and tell something about themselves along the way.

Paula Thomas

00:25:08

Yeah. And what I’m hearing as well, Tim is that the brand marketers are realizing the power to continue the engagement in a super cost-effective way, particularly using contests and sweepstakes. So it’s not like you always have to be investing in more points or more prizes, even it’s just, let’s, let’s just engage with them on a regular basis as super affordable way to do it.

Tim Glomb

00:25:32

It’s incredibly affordable. It’s progressive profiling. And to your point, if let’s say you enter that sweepstakes, that example, and you say, yes, I am going to have a gardening project this year. Well, great. Next month, they’re going to send you three more questions about gardening and just, you know, it just goes down that branch, you can find that funnel. It’s kind of like, you know, you and I, we have friends that love wine. We have friends that love beer. We have friends that love to skateboard and friends that loves the bike. Like we have our own individual conversations with them about those topics, because we know that friend likes that particular thing. And when brands start using technology to continue the conversation and listen meaningfully, and then their loyalty offerings and just our product and services offerings are far more aligned with, with their audience and they can give the right offer to the right person at the right time.

Tim Glomb

00:26:23

It, it, it’s not rocket science. I think it’s, it’s unfortunately, as I mentioned before, marketers, weren’t ready and don’t have the technology to personalize, but the technology exists. They just need to get off their laurels and go find it and implement it.

Paula Thomas

00:26:36

Yes. And, and you’ve used by favorite term there as well. Tim and I’ve already had one podcast recording earlier today and I already use the same one with this whole thing about progressive profiling. It’s it’s super cool. And again, as a consumer, that’s what I want. Like, don’t give me 20 fields of data. Like I literally saw the last application I filled in. I was like really 20, 22. You want all that upfront? I mean, no way, no way. So super cool. Great. And listen, the final, big one, I suppose, in terms of them, the digital trends again, is about, I suppose, the unsurprising continuing power of email for brands and consumers continuing to love it.

Paula Thomas

00:27:17

Like what’s your take on that?

Tim Glomb

00:27:18

Yeah. So the stat you’re talking about in Harriman, I’m going to read it and make sure I get it right. 41% of people were, had made a purchase from an email in the last 12 months. And that was a 16% increase from 2021 that’s global data. Now email is still the number one driver. The report also touts how it beats out banner ads and social posts, et cetera, for driving commerce email look has been around forever. It’s a staple. You know, there are definitely are platforms and brands are using mobile outside of email, especially when you’re talking about younger generations. But email is definitely something that every brand needs to have.

Tim Glomb

00:28:01

They have to have a robust strategy. The other thing about email, then one of the reasons that it’s so effective is it can be personalized very easily. And I don’t mean just, okay, we have Tim’s name is a first name field in our database. Let’s inject that into the subject line. Hi Tim. You know, by this thing, we can literally inject into subject lines, which affect obviously the open rate we can inject the right keyword. If Tim said he has a gardening project in that survey, Hey Tim, here’s some gardening tips for you or whatever it might be. So again, it goes to asking a question using that data. So personalizing emails, subject lines has been huge, which has been a huge concern. And I’ve been speaking a lot about this with clients because with apples changes iOS 14, five, now apple mail is going to give back false positives and open rates, et cetera.

Tim Glomb

00:28:50

Well, that subject line is really going to help get that email open. And then you still have to have great dynamic content that matches Tim’s or Jane or Joe’s, you know, needs. So email is a very, very easy place to start with personalization. And it is still a driver. The one thing I will say, I am breaking down, I’m going to have another point of view on this report, hopefully in mid may where we break down the things like email to the age group, because, okay, I’m just going to be honest, you know, a top level stat emails, a number one driver for commerce. Great. But it’s not the same for boomers and Gen Z. Obviously you could probably assume Gen Z, not as savvy on email, they didn’t grow up having it and they can use their phone number to create a tic-tac account or a Twitter account.

Tim Glomb

00:29:38

So it’ll be when I break that, that data down into age groups to see how boomers are adopting email, SMS, et cetera, and how Gen Z are acting a little differently. So if you’re interested in learning about that, we’re digging through the data and we’ll publish it in may and it’ll be available at cheetahdigital.com.

Paula Thomas

00:29:56

Amazing. Yeah, I do think you get a massive amount out of this, Tim, as I said, I know you do it every year and continue to do more and more webinars. I think it’s an 80 page report already. And I think he said there’s a million data points behind that. So probably a few more 80 page reports. Is there anything else then Tim, that you wanted to highlight today? I will say, of course, we’re going to make sure that the, the whole digital consumer trends report would of course be available in the show notes for Let’s Talk Loyalty, as you said, it’s directly on the homepage of cheetah, digital.com. So super easy to find, but any other kind of closing remarks then for anyone listening, who’s really interested in, in what consumers are saying about digital.

Tim Glomb

00:30:40

Yeah. I mean, not, not just this report, as you mentioned, we have a hub, we have multiple webinars and multiple points of view on this different lenses. There’s so much data. We break it down by us. Only as I mentioned, we’re gonna break down by age. We break it down by vertical as well. There’s some great vertical information in there. So all industries are pretty much covered in the report. So go get the report. But the one thing that’s really coming out of this, and now that we have our third year of the trends, it’s very clear that relationship marketing is really what marketers need to start thinking about. That’s the term that we’re pushing hard at Cheetah Digital this year. And we’re going to, we’re going to push brand marketers to really reevaluate. Are they building true relationships or are they serving their own needs?

Tim Glomb

00:31:23

As I mentioned earlier, you know, meeting your own goals. So, you know, we’re, we’re going to be publishing some content that explains what we believe are the four stages of relationship marketing, which are basically, you have an unknown consumer. Then you have a known consumer. Now you’ve got an engaged consumer and then you have a loyal consumer. And each one of those stages, marketers really, really need to have a strategy on how they’re, they’re moving people along that life cycle. So I’m excited to dig in, explain that, create some playbooks, give some great examples. I just, I just did something yesterday with American Airlines where they’ve adopted that relationship marketing strategy. They understand how to identify somebody that they don’t know who just buys a ticket.

Tim Glomb

00:32:08

And then somebody who buys a second ticket and then somebody who opens their emails, uses the rewards program. And then somebody who becomes an advocate and brings, you know, their friends and family into the program as well. So that’s what I’m going to be focused on. I hope marketers, they start thinking about building relationships this year. And if anybody, you know, we have our own podcast thinking caps that we do every week. It’s a video podcast, short form, but if anybody wants to come talk to me about relationship marketing, I love for them to reach out and get them on the show and let’s let’s agree or disagree, but let’s add some conversations about

Paula Thomas

00:32:39

You’re all about having fun, Tim. I absolutely love it. And actually it is very inspiring to hear that brands like American airlines. Like I think we all think, you know, they’ve got it all figured out. They’ve got the whole thing sorted for the fact that they’re still evolving, still learning and still try and use strategies with you guys. It said super inspiring.

Tim Glomb

00:32:57

You know, that’s a really good point. And that’s where talking about for a second because yeah, we have great enterprise global brand. I mean, Starbucks, you know, one of the most savvy brands ever, but nobody has this truly figured out. So that’s the one thing I think anyone listening, you know, they don’t have to go, oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do. Or, you know, I haven’t figured this out. Like, don’t worry, nobody’s got everything figured out. You just have to test and learn from each other and you know, great resources like this podcast. So don’t, don’t be, don’t be alarmed if you don’t have your strategy completely mapped out, just go get resources, go get the things like our consumer trends, index there’s other platforms like ours that have other resources do your homework and you know, just try and make the best decision for your brand, but keep the consumer at the heart of your efforts.

Tim Glomb

00:33:43

And you will win. If you build a relationship with your consumers, your brand will win. Don’t forget that. That’d be my parting advice.

Paula Thomas

00:33:51

Well, on that note, I have to say it’s super exciting. Thank you for all of your incredible work, Tim, vice-president of content and data. Tim Glomb.

Tim Glomb

00:34:00

Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty. This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing using insights and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 245 executives in 27 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals. For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.

Paula Thomas

00:34:47

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty. If you’d like us to send you the latest shows each week, simply sign up for the Let’s Talk Loyalty newsletter on LetsTalkLoyalty.com. We’ll send our best episodes straight to your inbox. And don’t forget that you can follow Let’s Talk Loyalty on any of your favorite podcast platforms. And of course we’d love for you to share your feedback and reviews. Thanks again for supporting this show.

Publisher’s Note:

This transcript was generated with the help of AI and podcast publishing tools such as Apple Podcast’s transcription service.

In the interests of efficiency and minimising our costs as a small business, it has not been checked by a human.

If you have any comments or concerns about the accuracy of this content, please do contact us for changes or corrections.

NEWSLETTER

Sign up here and get the latest podcast episodes and loyalty marketing news delivered directly to your inbox

Email Address *

First Name *

Country *